Madrosarai

• Feel pride about your people's history and often tell others about it.
• Trust in your bloodline to help determine the best course of action in a situation.
• Follow your leaders because you understand the importance of hierarchy to maintain order.

• Think you don't have emotions.
• Worry you might be an agent of the Virtuum.
• Associate your entire personality with your bloodline.

Madrosarais are humanoids with brightly hued skin tones that exemplify the arcane, tinged blood that runs in their veins. The origin of their blood remains a mystery, though madrosarais believe that it comes from outside the Universe and that they're children of some greater cosmic power. Each madrosarai possesses a secondary thumb that allows for extra dexterous movements using their hands. A typical madrosarai ranges from 5 to 6 feet tall as adults, though they often have lighter frames and weigh approximately 140 pounds at an average height. Their ears are elongated to the point that many of them sag and droop along their sides. On average, a madrosarai has a lifespan roughly equivalent to a human.

The blood running through a madrosarai's veins determines their outer skin complexion, giving the entire species a visibly notable heritage through line, from the vibrant lime-hued madrosarais to the strange gold-blooded members of the species. Bloodlines in this sense act as the heritages of other ancestries, granting some manner of special arcane-powered abilities to a madrosarai based on what blood type they develop into. A nascent madrosarai appears as a milky translucent infant, until such time as their bloodline settles, typically between the ages of three to five. Once this occurs, the established hue quickly runs through the child's body, and its tone becomes defined within a week. The bloodline of a madrosarai remains unconnected to their familial lineage, meaning that the child of lime and umber madrosarais is as likely to be teal-blooded or umber-blooded as have a parent's bloodline.

Almost every madrosarai has an additional set of eyes on the back of their heads and a secondary set of thumbs on their hands, with only a few individuals lacking these extra appendages (a development seen as both a potential blessing and as a curse). These extra thumbs on the other side of their hands provide madrosarais an increased agility with their hands, allowing for actions that other humanoid species couldn't easily perform. Some weapon manufacturers create modified versions that allow madrosarais to take advantage of their extra appendage when firing a weapon, and most weapons built within the Eimehre Virtuum have these specific modifications already in place.

Eimehre is the madrosarai home world. The planet had several names prior to the emergence of the hero Eimehre, who unified the madrosarai people, leading to the world receiving his name. The battles Eimehre fought were mostly against invading forces of daemons that ravaged the planet and nearly forced madrosarais to a breaking point. Records indicate that Eimehre unified his people in a vast coalition against these magical intrusions from daemonic forces of Abaddon, achieving his goal only after being poisoned by a retreating daemonic harbinger. On his deathbed, Eimehre granted rulership of the madrosarai people to his three daughters, who each became a queen. This established the long madrosarai line of three ruling queens for their civilization, which would become known as the Eimehre Virtuum.

Eimehre is a terrestrial Golarion-like planet, known for having vast mountain ranges spread across several large continents. Since the ascension of Queen Odelria (vicious female madrosarai monarch), the Eimehre Virtuum has continued to expand, claiming territories and worlds previously allied to other powers. Madrosarais have thus become the predominant sapient species on the planet, establishing vast vassal states across its surface. A designated noble leads each state, which in turn swears their fealty to the three madrosarai queens. Nobles have specific titles, often baron/baroness or duke/duchess. The role of nobles and queens isn't hereditary; instead, each state has its own means of establishing a new noble to take governance. For the three queens, this process comes in the form of each queen having a coterie of handmaidens, who serve the queen before they're dispatched into the wider Absurdity to learn about other people. Once a queen whose handmaidens have been dispatched in this manner perishes, the handmaidens must return to Eimehre, where they battle one another in the queenly winter palace for the honor of taking the deceased queen's seat.

Currently, only one queen fills the royal seat ever since a disastrous event slew the other Virtuum queens years ago. Queen Odelria retains firm control of the Virtuum, having returned to the home world first and achieving the position of queen as a result. She publicly espouses her hopes for other handmaidens to arrive and take the seat of governance but secretly operates to prevent other potential candidates from taking the vacant thrones of the other two queens. There are believed to be dozens of surviving handmaidens of other queens; supposedly, they reside within the Absurdity (and beyond) while biding their time to find a way to return to their home world and seize the throne.

Most madrosarais operate within the Virtuum and have little to no contact with outsiders. A vast majority of the species is highly devoted to their feudalist system, with most madrosarais pledging loyalty to their local nobles and their queen(s). They often take roles to advance their local society, whether it be as part of a workforce in a settlement or by joining the military and providing services more directly to the Queen and the defense of the Virtuum. Madrosarais who choose to depart Virtuum space for the wider Absurdity might have a stigma imposed on them by people who see madrosarais as burgeoning conquerors, though such views aren't as prevalent outside of the Absurdity.

Madrosarais maintain a strong control of their emotions; they believe that emotional outbursts reflect poorly on themselves. This trait is exacerbated when dealing with other species, and madrosarais often take even further precautions to compose themselves, even in stressful situations around others. Some manage to overcome this trait, oftentimes as a result of loosening their mental guard when in the constant company of others who coax out emotions from them. Those within the Virtuum see their emotional composition as a quality that helps define social status among their peers. A madrosarai who loses their temper or succumbs to emotional outbursts might be ejected from a job or reassigned to other less potentially fraught positions within the Virtuum.

The Madrosarai language is a sibilant one, and it's traditionally delivered in a soft-spoken manner. The speaker often preposes a sentence by indicating who they're speaking to in a descriptive manner, such as “Weary traveler…” and then delivers the content of their message. They might also emphasize statements by adding chuckles or laughs, oftentimes changing the meaning of a sentence with the addition of such embellishments. Madrosarai names vary but often consist of two or three syllables that emphasize the use of the letters a, l, and s.

Isolated from much of the wider cosmos until recently, madrosarais maintain a number of spiritual beliefs intrinsic to their culture. For example, they don't venerate the normal pantheon of deities but instead worship a collected pantheon representing past Virtuum queens and a near-deification of their unifier, Eimehre. None of these entities actually grant divine power, but instead other powers sometimes fill the void or some simply interpret their abilities (such as a mystic's connection) as being granted by these past powers.

One area where madrosarais maintain a firm belief is the extermination of fiends. Since their world endured an assault by daemonic forces, the Virtuum and, by extension, most madrosarais have held a restrained loathing of daemons and their ilk. The most reviled of these fiends is the daemonic harbinger, Roqorolos, known as the Prince of the Wracked or the Seadrinker.
Popular Edicts follow the directions of your superiors, trust in the power of your bloodline on how to handle a situation
Popular Anathema display your emotional state with regularity

Andrest, Bakile, Cerast, Lucerne, Nevel, Odelria, Palerne, Sankikle

8

Medium

Dexterity, Charisma, Free

Strength

Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it's positive). Choose from the list of common languages and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent on your home world).

You keep your emotions contained. Creatures take a –2 circumstance penalty to Sense Motive checks against you. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to saving throws against emotion effects. If you roll a success on a saving throw against an emotion effect, you get a critical success instead.